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White House Changes Policy on Condolence Letters for Military Suicides

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White House Changes Policy on Condolence Letters for Military Suicides

By James Dao July 6, 2011 12:06 pmJuly 6, 2011 12:06 pm

For several administrations at least, the White House has declined to send letters of condolence to families of troops who committed suicide, even if those suicides occurred in combat zones.

The policy was based on concerns within military circles that recognizing such deaths would encourage more suicides. But it infuriated many of those families, who felt they should have received the same kinds of letters sent to families of every service member killed in action.

Starting this week, however, the White House will start sending condolence letters to families of troops who commit suicide in combat zones, which include Afghanistan, Iraq and some other areas that provide support services to combat operations. But families of military personnel who kill themselves in the United States and on foreign bases not considered combat zones will not receive the letters.

“This decision was made after a difficult and exhaustive review of the former policy, and I did not make it lightly,” the president said in a statement Wednesday. “This issue is emotional, painful, and complicated, but these Americans served our nation bravely. They didn’t die because they were weak.”

The president said that rather than encouraging suicides, the new policy might prevent them by reducing the stigma against mental health counseling and thereby encouraging troops to seek help.

“The fact that they didn’t get the help they needed must change,” the president’s statement said. “Our men and women in uniform have borne the incredible burden of our wars, and we need to do everything in our power to honor their service, and to help them stay strong for themselves, for their families and for our nation.”

In recent years, the military suicide rate has been above the rate for the general population, a reflection, experts say, of the stress of rapid-tempo combat operations and multiple deployments. But the majority of those suicides, 295 last year among active-duty personnel across the services, have been committed outside combat zones, mostly in the United States.

In the Army, for instance, which is the largest of the armed services and has by far the most suicides, 25 of the 155 suicides recorded last year — or about one in six — were committed in war zones, according to Army statistics. Through May of this year, 13 of the Army’s 67 suicides were in theater.

The long time it took for the White House to finish its review seemed to reflect the resistance from senior military officials about recognizing suicides.

General Peter W. Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff, acknowledged that resistance in a statement, noting that when he was commander of the 1st Cavalry Division in Iraq in 2004 and 2005, his unit lost 169 soldiers — including one suicide. But a memorial to those deaths at Fort Hood left off the name of the suicide. General Chiarelli said he came to regret his decision.

“Many are struggling with the ‘invisible wounds’ of this war, including traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress, depression and anxiety,” General Chiarelli said in a statement. “Any attempt to characterize these individuals as somehow weaker than others is simply misguided.”

One organization that works with military families called on the White House to broaden the policy and send letters of condolences to all troops who die while serving, whether by suicide, accident or disease, and whether they are in a combat zone or not.

“With only select families receiving presidential condolence letters, a line is drawn between the value of the life and service of someone who dies on foreign soil and someone who dies in the exact same manner, whether injury, illness or suicide, here at home,” the group, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, said in a statement. “For families, that does not go unnoticed and is often hurtful.”

Christopher Scheuerman, a former Army special forces medic whose son, Jason, killed himself in Iraq in 2005, called the new policy “a victory for families of troubled soldiers.”

But Mr. Scheuerman said that military families who lost service members to suicide before now should also receive letters. The policy will apply only to suicides from July 5 forward.

“It’s the symbolic act of that signature that makes all the difference to the families,” Mr. Scheuerman said in an interview. “It would not take that much more effort on behalf of the commander-in-chief to reach back and recognize the families who have suffered.”

White House officials said the logistics of tracking down families of past military suicides would be time consuming.

The change of policy, which took effect on Tuesday, was first reported by CBS News.

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